THELEAF 
OF  OLIVE 

BY 

MauriceMaeterlwck 

TRANSLATED  BY 

dlejcariderlevoeim  Be Matins 


& 

cDodd,Mead 
&  Company 
Newiork 


Copyright ,  IQ04, 

By  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company 

Published,  October,  1908 


ujjuu*~>  ij: 


the  leaf  of  olive 

J>  rA  2. 4 

5  Ot  E  m 

1  19»« 

- 


V 


i 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


I 

ET  us  not  forget  that 
we  live  in  pregnant 
and  decisive  times. 
It  is  probable  that 
our  descendants  will  envy  us 
the  dawn  through  which,  with¬ 
out  knowing  it,  we  are  passing, 
just  as  we  envy  those  who  took 
part  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  in 
the  most  glorious  days  of  Ro¬ 
man  greatness  and  in  certain 
hours  of  the  Italian  Renascence. 
The  splendid  dust  that  clouds 
the  great  movements  of  men 
shines  brightly  in  the  memory, 
but  blinds  those  who  raise  it 
and  breathe  it,  hiding  from  them 
the  direction  of  their  road  and, 


7 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


above  all,  the  thought,  the  ne¬ 
cessity  or  the  instinct  that  leads 
them. 

It  concerns  us  to  take  account 
of  this.  The  web  of  daily  life 
varies  little  throughout  the  cen¬ 
turies  in  which  men  have  at¬ 
tained  a  certain  facility  of  ex¬ 
istence.  This  web,  in  which 
the  surface  occupied  by  boons 
and  evils  remains  much  the 
same,  shows  through  it  either 
light  or  dark  according  to  the 
predominant  idea  of  the  genera¬ 
tion  that  unfolds  it.  And,  what¬ 
ever  its  form  or  its  disguise  may 
be,  this  idea  always  reduces 
itself,  in  the  ultimate  issue,  to  a 
certain  conception  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  Private  or  public  ca¬ 
lamity  and  prosperity  have  but 
a  fleeting  influence  on  the  hap¬ 
piness  and  unhappiness  of  man- 


8 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

kind,  so  long  as  they  do  not 
modify  the  general  ideas  with 
which  it  is  nurtured  and  en¬ 
lightened  on  the  subject  of  its 
gods,  of  infinity,  of  the  great 
unknown  and  of  the  world’s 
economy.  Hence,  we  must 
seek  there,  rather  than  in  wars 
and  civil  troubles,  if  we  would 
know  whether  a  generation  have 
passed  in  darkness  or  in  light, 
in  distress  or  in  joyfulness. 
There  we  see  why  one  people, 
which  underwent  many  reverses, 
has  left  us  numberless  evidences 
of  beauty  and  of  gladness, 
whereas  another,  which  was 
naturally  rich  or  often  victori¬ 
ous,  has  bequeathed  to  us  only 
the  monuments  of  a  dull  and 
awe-struck  life. 


9 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


II 

We  are  emerging  (to  speak 
only  of  the  last  three  or  four 
centuries  of  our  present  civili¬ 
zation),  we  are  emerging  from 
the  great  religious  period. 
During  this  period,  despite  the 
hopes  laid  beyond  the  tomb, 
human  life  stood  out  against  a 
somewhat  gloomy  and  threaten¬ 
ing  background.  This  back¬ 
ground  allowed  the  thousand 
mobile  and  diversely  shaded 
curtains  of  art  and  metaphysics 
to  intervene  pretty  freely  be¬ 
tween  the  last  men  and  its  faded 
folds.  Its  existence  was  to 
some  extent  forgotten.  It  no 
longer  appeared  in  view  save 
at  the  hour  of  the  great  rifts. 
Nevertheless,  it  always  existed 


io 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

in  the  immanent  state,  giving  a 
uniform  color  to  the  atmosphere 
and  the  landscape  and  giving  to 
human  life  a  diffuse  meaning 
which  proposed  a  sort  of  pro¬ 
visional  patience  upon  questions 
that  were  too  pressing. 

To-day,  this  background  is 
disappearing  in  tatters.  What 
is  there  in  its  place  to  give  a 
visible  form,  a  new  meaning  to 
the  horizon  ? 

The  fallacious  axis  upon  which 
humanity  believed  itself  to  re¬ 
volve  has  suddenly  snapped  in 
two  ;  and  the  huge  platform 
which  carries  mankind,  after 
swaying  for  some  time  in  our 
alarmed  imaginations,  has  quietly 
settled  itself  again  to  turning  on 
the  real  pivot  that  had  always 
supported  it.  Nothing  is 
changed  except  one  of  those 


ii 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


unexplained  phrases  with  which 
we  cover  the  things  which  we 
do  not  understand.  Hitherto, 
the  pivot  of  the  world  seemed 
to  us  to  be  made  up  of  spiritual 
forces ;  to-day,  we  are  con¬ 
vinced  that  it  is  composed  of 
purely  material  energies.  We 
flatter  ourselves  that  a  great 
revolution  has  been  accom¬ 
plished  in  the  kingdom  of  truth. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has 
been,  in  the  republic  of  our  ig¬ 
norance,  but  a  permutation  of 
epithets,  a  sort  of  verbal  coup 
dCEtat ,  the  words  “  mind  "  and 
“  matter”  being  no  more  than 
the  interchangeable  attributes 
of  the  same  unknown. 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


III 

But  if  it  be  true  that,  in 
themselves,  these  epithets 
should  have  merely  a  literary 
value,  since  both  are  probably 
inaccurate  and  no  more  repre¬ 
sent  reality  than  the  epithet 
“ Atlantic ”  or  “Pacific”  repre¬ 
sents  the  ocean  to  which  it  is  ap¬ 
plied,  they  do,  nevertheless,  ac¬ 
cording  as  we  adhere  exclusively 
to  the  first  or  to  the  second, 
exercise  a  prodigious  influ¬ 
ence  over  our  future,  over  our 
morality  and,  consequently, 
over  our  happiness.  We  wan¬ 
der  round  the  truth,  with  no 
other  guide  than  hypotheses 
which  light,  by  way  of  torches, 
some  famous,  but  magic  phrases, 
and  soon  those  phrases  become 


i3 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

for  us  so  many  living  entities, 
which  place  themselves  at  the 
head  of  our  physical,  intellectual 
and  moral  activity.  If  we  be¬ 
lieve  that  mind  directs  the  uni¬ 
verse,  all  our  researches  and  all 
our  hopes  are  concentrated  upon 
our  own  mind,  or  rather  upon 
its  verbal  and  imaginative  facul¬ 
ties  and  we  become  addicted 
to  theology  and  metaphysics. 
If  we  are  persuaded  that  the 
last  word  of  the  riddle  lies  in 
matter,  we  apply  ourselves  ex¬ 
clusively  to  interrogating  this 
and  we  place  our  confidence  in 
experimental  science  only.  We 
are  beginning,  however,  to  rec¬ 
ognize  that  “  materialism  ”  and 
“spiritualism”  are  merely  the 
two  opposite,  but  identical 
names  of  our  impotent  labor 
after  comprehension.  Never- 


14 


the  leaf  of  olive 

theless,  each  of  the  two  methods 
drags  us  into  a  moral  world  that 
seems  to  belong  to  a  different 
planet. 


IS 


THtE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


IV 

Let  us  pass  over  the  acces¬ 
sory  consequences.  The  great 
advantage  of  the  spiritualistic 
interpretation  is  that  it  gives  to 
our  life  a  morality,  an  aim  and 
a  meaning  that  are  imaginary, 
but  very  much  superior  to  those 
which  our  cultivated  instincts 
proffer  to  it.  The  more  or  less 
unbelieving  spiritualism  of  to¬ 
day  still  draws  light  from  the 
reflection  of  that  advantage  and 
preserves  a  deep,  though  some¬ 
what  shapeless  faith  in  the  final 
supremacy  and  the  indeterminate 
triumph  of  the  mind. 

The  other  interpretation,  on 
the  contrary,  offers  us  no  mo¬ 
rality,  no  ideal  superior  to  our 
instinct,  no  aim  situate  outside 


16 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


ourselves  and  no  horizon  other 
than  space.  Or  else,  if  we 
could  derive  a  morality  from  the 
only  synthetic  theory  that  has 
sprung  from  the  innumerable 
experimental  and  fragmentary 
statements  which  form  the  im¬ 
posing  but  dumb  mass  of  the 
conquests  of  science,  I  mean 
the  theory  of  evolution,  it  would 
be  the  horrible  and  monstrous 
morality  of  nature,  that  is  to 
say,  the  adaptation  of  the  species 
to  the  environment,  the  triumph 
of  the  strongest  and  all  the 
crimes  necessary  to  the  struggle 
of  life.  Now  this  morality, 
which  does,  in  the  meanwhile, 
appear  to  be  another  certainty, 
the  essential  morality  of  all 
earthly  life,  since  it  inspires  the 
actions  of  agile  and  ephemeral 
man  as  well  as  the  slow  move- 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

ments  of  the  undying  crystals  : 
this  morality  would  soon  become 
fatal  to  mankind  if  it  were  prac¬ 
ticed  to  an  extreme.  All  relig¬ 
ions,  all  philosophies,  the  coun¬ 
sels  of  gods  and  wise  men  have 
had  no  other  object  than  to  in¬ 
troduce  into  this  overheated  en¬ 
vironment,  which,  if  it  were 
pure,  would  probably  dissolve 
our  species,  elements  that  should 
reduce  its  virulence.  These 
were,  more  particularly,  a  belief 
in  just  and  dread  gods,  a  hope 
of  reward  and  a  fear  of  eternal 
punishment.  There  were  also 
neutral  matters  and  antidotes, 
for  which,  with  a  somewhat 
curious  foresight,  nature  had 
reserved  a  place  in  our  own 
hearts  :  I  mean  goodness,  pity, 
a  sense  of  justice. 

Wherefore,  this  intolerant  and 


18 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

exclusive  environment,  which 
was  to  be  our  natural  and  nor¬ 
mal  environment,  was  never 
and  probably  never  will  be 
pure.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
state  in  which  it  is  to-day  of¬ 
fers  a  strange  and  noteworthy 
spectacle.  It  is  fretting,  bub¬ 
bling  and  being  precipitated  like 
a  fluid  into  which  chance  has  let 
fall  a  few  drops  of  some  unknown 
reagent.  The  compensating 
principles  which  religion  had 
added  to  it  are  gradually  evapo¬ 
rating  and  being  eliminated  at 
the  top,  while  at  the  bottom 
they  are  coagulating  into  a  thick 
and  inactive  mass.  But,  in  pro¬ 
portion  as  these  disappear,  the 
purely  human  antidotes,  al¬ 
though  oxidized  through  and 
through  by  the  elimination  of 
the  religious  elements,  gain 


*9 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

greater  vigor  and  seem  to  exert 
themselves  to  maintain  the  stand¬ 
ard  of  the  mixture  in  which  the 
human  species  is  being  cultivated 
by  an  obscure  destiny.  Pend¬ 
ing  the  arrival  of  as  yet  mys¬ 
terious  auxiliaries,  they  occupy 
the  place  abandoned  by  the 
evaporating  forces. 


20 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


V 

Is  it  not  surprising,  at  the 
outset,  that,  in  spite  of  the  de¬ 
crease  of  religious  feeling  and 
the  influence  which  this  decrease 
must  needs  have  upon  human 
reason,  which  no  longer  sees 
any  supernatural  interest  in  do¬ 
ing  good,  while  the  natural  in¬ 
terest  in  doing  good  is  fairly 
disputable  :  is  it  not  surprising 
that  the  sum  of  justice  and  good¬ 
ness  and  the  quality  of  the  gen¬ 
eral  conscience,  far  from  dimin¬ 
ishing,  have  incontestably,  in¬ 
creased  >  I  say  incontestably, 
although  doubtless  the  fact  will 
be  contested.  To  establish  it, 
we  should  have  to  review  all 
history,  or,  at  the  very  least, 
that  of  the  last  few  centuries, 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

compare  the  position  of  those 
who  were  unhappy  formerly 
with  that  of  those  who  are  un¬ 
happy  now,  place  beside  the 
sum  total  of  the  injustice  of 
yesterday  the  sum  total  of  the 
injustice  of  to-day,  contrast  the 
state  of  the  serf,  the  semi-serf, 
the  peasant,  the  laborer,  under 
the  old  systems  of  government, 
with  the  condition  of  our  work¬ 
ing  man,  set  the  indifference,  the 
unconsciousness,  the  easy  and 
harsh  certainty  of  those  who 
possessed  the  land  in  former 
days  against  the  sympathy,  the 
self-reproachful  restlessness,  the 
scruples  of  those  who  possess 
the  land  to-day.  All  this  would 
demand  a  detailed  and  very  long 
study  ;  but  I  think  that  any  fair 
mind  will,  without  difficulty, 
allow  that  there  is,  notwith- 


22 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

standing  the  existence  of  too 
much  real  and  wide-spread 
wretchedness,  a  little  more  jus¬ 
tice,  solidarity,  sympathy  and 
hope,  not  only  in  the  wishes  of 
men — for  thus  much  seems  cer¬ 
tain — but  in  very  deed.  .  .  . 

To  what  religion,  to  what 
thoughts,  to  what  new  elements 
are  we  to  attribute  this  illogical 
improvement  in  our  moral  at¬ 
mosphere  ?  It  is  difficult!  to 
state  precisely ;  for,  though  it 
is  certain  that  they  are  begin¬ 
ning  to  act  in  a  very  perceptible 
manner,  they  are  still  too  recent, 
too  shapeless,  too  unsettled  for 
us  to  qualify  them. 


23 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


VI 

Let  us,  nevertheless,  try  to 
pick  out  a  few  clues  ;  and  let  us 
state,  in  the  first  place,  that  our 
conception  of  the  universe  has 
been  greatly  and  most  effectively 
modified  and,  above  all,  that  it 
is  tending  to  become  modified 
more  and  more  rapidly.  With¬ 
out  our  accounting  for  it,  each 
of  the  numerous  discoveries  of 
science — whether  affecting  his¬ 
tory,  anthropology,  geography, 
geology,  medicine,  physics, 
chemistry,  astronomy  or  the 
rest — changes  our  accustomed 
atmosphere  and  adds  some  es¬ 
sential  thing  to  an  image  which 
we  do  not  yet  distinguish,  but 
which  we  see  looming  above  us, 
occupying  the  whole  horizon, 


24 


the  leaf  of  olive 

and  which  we  feel,  by  a  pre¬ 
sentiment,  to  be  enormous.  Its 
features  are  straggling,  like 
those  illuminations  which  we 
see  at  evening  ffetes.  A  frontal, 
colonnade,  cupola  and  portico, 
all  incoherent,  appear  abruptly 
in  the  sky.  We  do  not  know 
what  they  mean,  to  what  they 
belong.  They  hang  absurdly 
in  the  motionless  ether ;  they 
are  inconsistent  dreams  in  the 
still  firmament.  But,  suddenly, 
a  little  line  of  light  meanders 
across  the  blue,  and,  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  connects 
the  cupola  with  the  columns, 
the  portico  with  the  frontal,  the 
steps  with  the  ground  ;  and  the 
unexpected  edifice,  as  though 
flinging  aside  a  mask  of  dark¬ 
ness,  stands  affirmed  and  explicit 
in  the  night. 


25 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

It  is  this  little  line  of  light, 
this  deciding  undulation,  this 
flash  of  general  and  comple¬ 
mentary  fire  that  is  still  lacking 
in  the  night  of  our  intelligence. 
But  we  feel  that  it  exists,  that 
it  is  there,  outlined  in  shadow 
in  the  darkness,  and  that  a  mere 
nothing,  a  spark  issuing  from 
we  know  not  what  science  will 
be  enough  to  light  it  and  to  give 
an  infallible  and  exact  sense  to 
our  immense  presentiments  and 
to  all  the  scattered  notions  that 
seem  to  stray  through  unfath¬ 
omable  space. 


26 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


VII 

Meanwhile,  this  space — the 
abode  of  our  ignorance — which, 
after  the  disappearance  of  the 
religious  ideas,  had  appeared 
frightfully  empty,  is  gradually 
becoming  peopled  with  vague, 
but  enormous  figures.  Each 
time  that  one  of  these  new 
forms  uprises,  the  boundless 
extent  in  which  it  comes  to 
move  increases  in  proportions 
that  are  boundless  in  their 
turn  ;  for  the  limits  of  bound¬ 
lessness  evolve  in  our  imagi¬ 
nation  without  ceasing.  As¬ 
suredly,  the  gods  who  con¬ 
ceived  certain  positive  religions 
were  sometimes  very  great. 
The  Jewish  and  Christian  God, 
for  instance,  declared  Himself 


27 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

incommensurable,  containing  all 
things,  and  His  first  attributes 
were  eternity  and  infinity.  But 
the  infinite  is  an  abstract  and 
tenebrous  notion  which  assumes 
life  and  is  explained  only  by  the 
displacing  of  frontiers  which  we 
thrust  back  further  and  further 
into  the  finite.  It  constitutes  a 
formless  extent  of  which  we 
can  acquire  a  consciousness 
only  with  the  aid  of  a  few 
phenomena  that  start  up  on 
points  more  or  less  distant  from 
the  centre  of  our  imagination. 
It  is  efficacious  only  through  the 
multiplicity  of  the,  so  to  speak, 
tangible  and  positive  faces  of 
the  unknown  which  it  reveals 
to  us  in  its  depths.  It  does  not 
become  comprehensible  and  per¬ 
ceptible  to  us  until  it  shows  ani¬ 
mation  and  movement  and  kin- 


28 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


dies  on  the  several  horizons  of 
space  questions  more  and  more 
distant,  more  and  more  foreign 
to  all  our  uncertainties.  For 
our  life  to  take  part  in  its  life, 
the  infinite  must  question  us  in¬ 
cessantly  and  incessantly  place 
us  in  the  presence  of  the  infinity 
of  our  ignorance,  which  is  the 
only  visible  garment  beneath 
which  it  allows  us  to  conjecture 
the  infinity  of  its  existence. 

Now  the  most  incommensu¬ 
rable  gods  hardly  put  questions 
similar  to  those  which  are  end¬ 
lessly  put  to  us  by  that  which 
their  adorers  call  the  void,  which 
is,  in  reality,  nature.  They 
were  content  to  reign  in  a  dead 
space,  without  events  and  with¬ 
out  images,  consequently  with¬ 
out  points  of  reference  for  our 
imagination,  and  having  only  an 


29 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

immutable  and  immobile  influ¬ 
ence  over  our  thoughts  and  feel¬ 
ings.  Thus,  our  sense  of  the 
finite,  which  is  the  source  of  all 
higher  activity,  became  atro¬ 
phied  within  us.  Our  intelli¬ 
gence,  in  order  to  live  on  the 
confines  of  itself,  where  it  ac¬ 
complishes  its  loftiest  mission, 
our  thought,  in  order  to  fill  the 
whole  space  of  our  brain,  needs 
to  be  continually  excited  by 
fresh  recallings  of  the  unknown. 
So  soon  as  it  ceases  to  be  daily 
summoned  to  the  extremity  of 
its  own  strength  by  some  new 
fact — and  there  are  hardly  any 
new  facts  in  the  reign  of  the 
gods — it  falls  asleep,  contracts, 
gives  way  and  sinks  into  decay. 
One  thing  alone  is  capable  of 
dilating  equally,  in  all  their 
parts,  all  the  lobes  of  our  head, 


3° 


the  leaf  of  olive 

and  that  is  the  active  idea  which 
we  conceive  of  the  riddle  in  the 
midst  of  which  we  have  our  be¬ 
ing.  Is  there  danger  of  error 
in  declaring  that  never  was  the 
activity  of  this  idea  comparable 
with  that  of  to-day?  Never 
before,  neither  at  the  time  when 
the  Hindoo,  Jewish  or  Chris¬ 
tian  theology  flourished,  nor  in 
the  days  when  Greek  or  Ger¬ 
man  metaphysics  were  engaging 
all  the  forces  of  human  genius, 
was  our  conception  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  enlivened,  enriched  and 
broadened  by  proofs  so  unex¬ 
pected,  so  laden  with  mystery, 
so  energetic,  so  real.  Until 
now,  it  was  fed  on  indirect  nour¬ 
ishment,  so  to  speak,  or  rather 
it  fed  illusively  on  itself.  It  in¬ 
flated  itself  with  its  own  breath, 
sprinkled  itself  with  its  own 


31 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

waters,  and  very  little  came  to 
it  from  without.  To-day,  the 
universe  itself  is  beginning  to 
penetrate  into  the  conception 
which  we  form  of  it.  The  diet 
of  our  thought  is  changed. 
That  which  it  takes  comes  from 
outside  itself  and  adds  to  its 
substance.  It  borrows  instead 
of  lending.  It  no  longer  sheds 
around  itself  the  reflection  of  its 
own  greatness,  but  absorbs  the 
greatness  around  it.  U ntil  now, 
we  had  been  prosing,  with  the 
aid  of  our  infirm  logic  or  our 
idle  imagination,  on  the  subject 
of  the  riddle ;  to-day,  issuing 
from  our  too  inward  abode,  we 
are  trying  to  enter  into  relations 
with  the  riddle  itself.  It  ques¬ 
tions  us,  and  we  stammer  as  best 
we  may.  We  put  questions  to 
it,  and,  in  reply,  it  unmasks,  at 


32 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

moments,  a  luminous  and  bound¬ 
less  perspective  in  the  immense 
circle  of  darkness  amid  which  we 
move.  We  were,  it  might  be 
said,  like  blind  men  who  should 
imagine  the  outer  world  from  in¬ 
side  a  shut  room.  Now,  we  are 
those  same  blind  men  whom  an 
ever-silent  guide  leads  by  turns 
into  the  forest,  across  the  plain ,  on 
the  mountain  and  beside  the  sea. 
Their  eyes  have  not  yet  opened  ; 
but  their  shaking  and  eagerhands 
are  able  to  feel  the  trees,  to 
rumple  the  spikes  of  corn,  to 
gather  a  flower  or  a  fruit, to  mar¬ 
vel  at  the  ridge  of  a  rock  or  to 
minglewith  the  cool  waves,  while 
their  ears  learn  to  distinguish, 
without  needing  to  understand, 
the  thousand  real  songs  of  the  sun 
and  the  shade,  the  wind  and  the 
rain,  the  leaves  and  the  waters. 


33 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


VIII 

If  our  happiness,  as  we  said 
above,  depends  upon  our  con¬ 
ception  of  the  universe,  this  is, 
in  a  great  measure,  because  our 
morality  depends  upon  it.  And 
our  morality  depends  much  less 
upon  the  nature  than  upon  the 
size  of  that  conception.  We 
should  be  better,  nobler,  more 
moral  in  the  midst  of  a  universe 
proved  to  be  without  morality, 
but  conceived  on  an  infinite 
scale,  than  in  a  universe  which 
attained  the  perfection  of  the 
human  ideal,  but  which  ap¬ 
peared  to  us  circumscribed  and 
devoid  of  mystery.  It  is,  before 
all,  important  to  make  as  vast  as 
possible  the  place  in  which  are 
developed  all  our  thoughts  and 


34 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

all  our  feelings ;  and  this  place 
is  none  other  than  that  in  which 
we  picture  the  universe.  We 
are  unable  to  move  except 
within  the  idea  which  we  create 
for  ourselves  of  the  world  in 
which  we  move.  Everything 
starts  from  that,  everything 
flows  from  it ;  and  all  our  acts, 
most  often  unknown  to  our¬ 
selves,  are  modified  by  the 
height  and  the  breadth  of  that 
immense  well  of  force  which 
exists  at  the  summit  of  our  con¬ 
science. 


35 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


IX 

I  think  that  we  may  say  that 
never  was  that  well  larger  nor 
more  highly  placed.  Certainly, 
the  idea  which  we  shape  for 
ourselves  of  the  organization 
and  government  of  the  infinite 
powers  is  less  precise  than 
heretofore ;  but  this  is  for  the 
good  and  noble  reason  that  it 
no  longer  admits  of  falsely-de¬ 
fined  conventional  limits.  It 
no  longer  contains  any  fixed 
morality,  any  consolation,  any 
promise,  any  certain  hope.  It 
is  bare  and  almost  empty,  be¬ 
cause  nothing  subsists  in  it  that 
is  not  the  very  bed-rock  of  some 
primitive  facts.  It  no  longer 
has  a  voice,  it  no  longer  has 
images,  except  to  proclaim  and 


36 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

illustrate  its  immensity.  Out¬ 
side  that,  it  no  longer  tells  us 
anything ;  but  this  immensity, 
having  remained  its  sole  imperi¬ 
ous  and  irrefutable  attribute, 
surpasses  in  energy,  nobility  and 
eloquence  all  the  attributes,  all 
the  virtues  and  perfections  with 
which  we  had  hitherto  peopled 
our  unknown.  It  lays  no  duty 
upon  us,  but  it  maintains  us  in 
a  state  of  greatness  that  will 
permit  us  more  easily  and  more 
generously  to  perform  all  those 
duties  which  await  us  on  the 
threshold  of  a  coming  future. 
By  bringing  us  nearer  to  our 
true  place  in  the  system  of  the 
worlds,  it  adds  to  our  spiritual 
and  general  life  all  that  it  takes 
away  from  our  material  and  in¬ 
dividual  importance.  The  more 
it  makes  us  recognize  our  little- 


37 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

ness,  the  greater  grows  that 
within  us  which  recognizes  this 
littleness.  A  new  being,  more 
disinterested  and  probably  closer 
to  that  which  is  one  day  to  pro¬ 
claim  itself  the  .last  truth,  is 
gradually  taking  the  place  of  the 
original  being  which  is  being 
dissolved  in  the  conception  that 
overwhelms  it. 


38 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


X 

To  this  new  being,  itself  and 
all  the  men  around  it  now  repre¬ 
sent  only  so  inconsiderable  a 
speck  in  the  infinity  of  the  eter¬ 
nal  forces  that  they  are  no 
longer  able  to  fix  its  attention 
and  its  interests.  Our  brothers, 
our  immediate  descendants,  our 
visible  neighbor,  all  that  but 
lately  marked  the  limit  of  our 
sympathies,  are  gradually  yield¬ 
ing  precedence  to  a  more  in¬ 
ordinate  and  loftier  being.  We 
are  almost  nothing ;  but  the 
species  to  which  we  belong 
occupies  a  place  that  can  be 
recognized  in  the  boundless 
ocean  of  life.  Though  we  no 
longer  count,  the  humanity  of 
which  we  form  a  part  is  acquir- 


39 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

ing  the  importance  of  which  we 
are  being  stripped.  This  feel¬ 
ing,  which  is  only  beginning  to 
make  its  way  in  the  accustomed 
atmosphere  of  our  thoughts  and 
of  our  unconsciousness,  is  al¬ 
ready  fashioning  our  morality 
and  is  doubtless  preparing  revo¬ 
lutions  as  great  as  those  wrought 
in  it  by  the  most  subversive  re¬ 
ligions.  It  will  gradually  dis¬ 
place  the  centre  of  most  of  our 
virtues  and  vices.  It  will  substi¬ 
tute  for  an  illusory  and  indi¬ 
vidual  ideal  a  disinterested,  un¬ 
limited  and  yet  tangible  ideal, 
of  which  it  is  not  yet  possible 
to  foresee  the  consequences 
and  the  laws.  But,  whatever 
these  may  be,  we  can  state  even 
now  that  they  will  be  even  more 
general  and  more  decisive  than 
any  of  those  which  preceded 


40 


the  leaf  of  olive 

them  in  the  superior  and,  so  to 
speak,  astral  history  of  man¬ 
kind.  In  any  case,  it  can  hardly 
be  denied  that  the  object  of  this 
ideal  is  more  lasting  and,  above 
all,  more  certain  than  the  best 
of  those  which  lightened  our 
darkness  before  it,  since  it  co¬ 
alesces  on  more  than  one  point 
with  the  object  of  the  universe 
itself. 


4i 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


XI 

And  we  are  just  at  the  mo¬ 
ment  when  a  thousand  new  rea¬ 
sons  for  having  confidence  in 
the  destinies  of  our  kind  are^be- 
ing  born  around  us.  For  hun¬ 
dreds  and  hundreds  of  centuries 
we  have  occupied  this  earth  ; 
and  the  greatest  dangers^seem 
past.  They  were  so  threaten¬ 
ing  that  we  have  escaped  them 
only  by  a  chance  that  cannot  oc¬ 
cur  more  than  once  in  a  thousand 
times  in  the  history  of  the  worlds. 
The  earth,  still  too  young,  was 
poising  its  continents,  its  is¬ 
lands  and  its  seas  before  fixing 
them.  The  central  fire,  the  first 
master  of  the  planet,  was  at 
every  moment  bursting  from  its 
granite  prison  ;  and  the  globe, 


42 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

hesitating  in  space,  wandered 
among  greedy  and  hostile  stars 
ignorant  of  their  laws.  Our 
undetermined  faculties  floated 
blindly  in  our  bodies,  like  the 
nebulae  in  the  ether ;  a  mere 
nothing  could  have  destroyed 
our  human  future  at  the  groping 
hours  when  our  brain  was  form¬ 
ing  itself,  when  the  network  of 
our  nerves  was  branching  out. 
To-day,  the  instability  of  the 
seas  and  the  uprisings  of  the 
central  fire  are  infinitely  less  to 
be  feared  ;  in  any  case,  it  is  un¬ 
likely  that  they  will  bring  about 
any  more  universal  catastrophes. 
As  for  the  third  peril,  collision 
with  a  stray  star,  we  may  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  believe  that  we  shall 
be  granted  the  few  centuries  of 
respite  necessary  for  us  to  learn 
how  to  ward  it  off.  When  we 


43 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

see  what  we  have  done  and 
what  we  are  on  the  point  of  do¬ 
ing,  it  is  not  absurd  to  hope  that 
one  day  we  shall  lay  hold  of  that 
essential  secret  of  the  worlds 
which,  for  the  time  being  and 
to  soothe  our  ignorance  (even  as 
we  soothe  a  child  and  lull  it  to 
sleep  by  repeating  to  it  mean¬ 
ingless  and  monotonous  words), 
we  have  called  the  law  of  gravi¬ 
tation.  There  is  nothing  mad 
in  supposing  that  the  secret  of 
this  sovereign  force  lies  hidden 
within  us,  or  around  us,  within 
reach  of  our  hand.  It  is  per¬ 
haps  tractable  and  docile,  even 
as  light  and  electricity ;  it  is 
perhaps  wholly  spiritual  and  de¬ 
pends  upon  a  very  simple  cause 
which  the  displacing  of  an  object 
may  reveal  to  us.  The  dis¬ 
covery  of  an  unexpected  prop- 


44 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

erty  of  matter,  analogous  to  that 
which  has  just  disclosed  to  us 
the  disconcerting  qualities  of  ra¬ 
dium,  may  lead  us  straight  to  the 
very  sources  of  the  energy  and 
the  life  of  the  stars  ;  and  from 
that  moment  man’s  lot  would 
be  changed  and  the  earth,  defi¬ 
nitely  saved,  would  become 
eternal.  It  would,  at  our  pleas¬ 
ure,  draw  closer  to  or  further 
from  the  centres  of  heat  and 
light,  it  would  flee  from  worn- 
out  suns  and  go  in  search  of  un¬ 
suspected  fluids,  forces  and  lives 
in  the  orbit  of  virgin  and  inex¬ 
haustible  worlds. 


45 


T  H,E  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


XII 

I  grant  that  all  this  is  full  of 
questionable  hopes  and  that  it 
would  be  almost  as  reasonable 
to  despair  of  the  destinies  of 
man.  But,  already,  it  is  much 
that  the  choice  remains  possible 
and  that,  hitherto,  nothing  has 
been  decided  against  us.  Every 
hour  that  passes  increases  our 
chances  of  holding  out  and  con¬ 
quering.  It  may  be  said,  I 
know,  that,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  beauty,  enjoyment  and 
the  harmonious  understanding 
of  life,  some  nations  —  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  of  the 
commencement  of  the  Empire, 
for  instance — were  superior  to 
ourselves.  The  fact  none  the 
less  remains  that  the  sum  total 


46 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

of  civilization  spread  over  oiir 
globe  was  never  to  be  compared 
with  that  of  to-day.  An  extra¬ 
ordinary  civilization,  such  as 
that  of  Athens,  Rome  or  Alex¬ 
andria,  formed  but  a  luminous 
islet  which  was  threatened  on 
every  side  and  which  ended  by 
being  swallowed  up  by  the  sav¬ 
age  ocean  that  surrounded  it. 
Nowadays — apart  from  the  Yel¬ 
low  Peril,  which  does  not  seem 
serious — it  is  no  longer  possible 
for  a  barbarian  invasion  to  make 
us  lose  in  a  few  days  our  essen¬ 
tial  conquests.  The  barbarians 
can  no  longer  come  from  with¬ 
out  :  they  would  issue  from  our 
fields  and  our  cities,  from  the 
shallow  waters  of  our  own  life  ; 
they  would  be  saturated  with 
the  civilization  which  they  would 
lay  claim  to  destroy  ;  and  it  is 


47 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

only  by  making  use  of  its  con¬ 
quests  that  they  would  succeed 
in  depriving  us  of  its  fruits, 
There  w-ould,  therefore,  at  the 
worst,  be  but  a  halt,  followed 
by  a  redistribution  of  riches. 

Since  we  have  a  choice  of  two 
interpretations,  forming  a  back¬ 
ground  of  light  or  of  shade  for 
our  existence,  it  would  be  un¬ 
wise  to  hesitate.  Even  in  the 
most  trivial  circumstances  .  .  . 
of  life,  our  ignorance  very  often 
offers  us  only  a  choice  of  the 
same  kind,  and  one  which  does 
not  impose  itself  more  strongly. 
Optimism  thus  understood  is  in 
no  way  devout  or  childish ;  it 
does  not  rejoice  stupidly  like  a 
peasant  leaving  the  inn  ;  but  it 
strikes  a  balance  between  what 
has  taken  and  what  can  take 
place,  between  hopes  and  fears, 


48 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

and,  if  the  last  be  not  heavy 
enough,  it  throws  in  the  weight 
of  life. 

For  the  rest,  this  choice  is 
not  even  necessary  :  it  is  enough 
that  we  should  feel  conscious  of 
the  greatness  of  our  expectation. 
For  we  are  in  the  magnificent 
state  in  which  Michael  Angelo 
painted  the  prophets  and  the 
just  men  of  the  Old  Testament, 
on  that  prodigious  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel :  we  are  living  in 
expectation  and  perhaps  in  the 
last  moments  of  expectation. 
Expectation,  in  fact,  has  degrees 
which  begin  with  a  sort  of  vague 
resignation  and  which  do  not 
yet  hope  for  the  thrill  aroused 
by  the  nearest  movements  of  the 
expected  object.  It  seems  as 
though  we  heard  those  move¬ 
ments  :  the  sound  of  superhu- 


49 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

man  footsteps,  an  enormous 
door  opening,  a  breath  caress¬ 
ing  us,  or  light  coming;  we  do 
not  know  ;  but  expectation  at 
this  pitch  is  an  ardent  and  mar¬ 
velous  state  of  life,  the  fairest 
period  of  happiness,  its  youth, 
its  childhood.  .  .  . 

I  repeat,  we  never  had  so 
many  good  reasons  for  hope. 
Let  us  cherish  them.  Our  pred¬ 
ecessors  were  sustained  by 
slighter  reasons  when  they  did  the 
great  things  that  have  remained 
for  us  the  best  evidence  of  the 
destinies  of  mankind.  They 
had  confidence  when  they  found 
none  but  unreasonable  reasons 
for  having  it.  To-day,  when 
some  of  those  reasons  really 
spring  from  reason,  it  would  be 
wrong  to  show  less  courage  than 
did  those  who  derived  theirs  from 


5° 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 

the  very  circumstances  whence 
we  derive  only  our  discourage¬ 
ments. 

We  no  longer  believe  that  this 
world  is  as  the  apple  of  the  eye 
of  one  God  who  is  alive  to  our 
slightest  thoughts  ;  but  we  know 
that  it  is  subjected  to  forces 
quite  as  powerful,  quite  as  alive 
to  laws  and  duties  which  it  be¬ 
hoves  us  to  penetrate.  That 
is  why  our  attitude  in  the  face 
of  the  mystery  of  these  forces 
has  changed.  It  is  no  longer 
one  of  fear,  but  one  of  bold¬ 
ness.  It  no  longer  demands 
that  the  slave  shall  kneel  before 
the  master  or  the  creator,  but 
permits  a  gaze  as  between 
equals,  for  we  bear  within  our¬ 
selves  the  equal  of  the  deepest 
and  greatest  mysteries. 


5i 


U.  OF  ILL  LIB. 


